Birthdays are always nostalgic, but let’s be honest, it takes very little to tip me into nostalgia.

If I had to pick a theme, I’d say year 27 was about unfinished business; I finished what I had started (#lawyered) and it was all very, verybusiness.

Undoubtedly, the biggest accomplishment of year 27 was being finally admitted to the legal profession. A journey that started well over the 1418 days ago when I arrived to Australia to start law school.

I have set a different intention for Year 28; Year 28 is about beginnings, balance and beauty.

The beginning of new goals, new relationships, new adventures.

Finding balance between creating the life I want and enjoying the life I have created.

There is always someone willing to do what you refuse to, or hesitate to do. Waiting. Anticipating.

A friend once told me, “life is adversity.”

Buddhism has taught me, life is suffering.

Prima facie, these notions appear pessimistic, though they are not. If we concede that life is suffering and full of struggles, we enable a happier life. Less disappointment. Less discouragement.

I try to exude positivity and joy, but it would be fallacious to say that I embody positivity and joy all the time.

Nor would I want to.

Dark times have the potential to turn friends into enemies and family into strangers. Dark times also have potential to be cultivated into something powerful.

I’m learning. Fumbling my way through this process of cultivating my (better) self. Writing, training, conversing with others and reflecting on all of the above have been the foundations for my development in this area.

“We stopped looking for monsters under the bed when we realized they were inside of us.” – Jordyn Berner

Freud was a big believer in making the unconscious, conscious. His younger colleague, Carl Jung, further developed the concept and has since become one of the prominent figures in “shadow” work.

The idea of a ‘dark side’ or a ‘darker side’ is not necessarily unfamiliar territory for many us. Consider anger, anger is often attributed as being a dark or negative feeling.

But is it?

When we strip the emotions of the cultural and societal stigmas and judgement; i.e, learned responses, what defines what is a good feeling and what is bad feeling?

Anger can be productive. It can be even be enlightening. When channeled towards a good purpose, anger could easily be mistaken for passion, determination and/or ambition And surely, those emotions are not negative. It is good to be passionate; recommended, even. But even passion could be ‘bad’ — what if you are passionate for the wrong thing. Or the wrong person.

The question then becomes what is good and what is bad? How do we define each? Are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ mere opinions? Judgements based on our preconceived notions of right and wrongdoing?

In the legal context, right and wrong are established by laws, but even laws change. Killing is wrong, but if in self-defense, is it right? We punish those who act outside of what society, religious leaders and politicians have decided as right; but who informed their judgement? We continue to judge those who behave outside what we have learned to accept as normal, but who are we to judge? Could it not be that our own judgements are ill-informed and wrong?

I have obsessed over the idea of a dark side and light side for years, there are qualities, characteristics and feelings which I have attributed to my dark side; I call him Mr. Hyde, but even in that recognition, it is clear I have categorized qualities resembling those embodied by the character in the novel as ‘Mr. Hyde’-like. What is this need to categorize?

What, or who, have we missed out on because our preconceived notions of good and bad suggested that they were bad people? Because their philosophy didn’t coincide with ours? Their life path differed from ours? Their upbringing reflected values different than ours?

“She reacted differently (to me)” Bad.

“I wouldn’t have reacted like that.” Dismissive.

Granted these are grand conclusions from particular examples, but it almost begs the question whether ‘different’ (to me/what I know) is what we have come to define as bad?

Something to think about: “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.” ― Rumi.